State Democratic Party Chair Ken Martin says Republican calls for an apology from U.S. Sen. Al Franken for a 2012 video clip showing him holding traffic cones up to his chest are an attempt to deflect attention from the comments of 1st District GOP candidate Jim Hagedorn.

Hagedorn has apologized for old blog posts disparaging women, homosexuals and American Indians. Now, Republicans are calling on Franken to do the same regarding a clip in which he appears to be jokingly using the cones as breasts. “This is pretty degrading to women,” Republican Party spokeswoman Brittni Palke said.

A spokeswoman for Franken’s campaign declined to comment on the video clip.

Martin is quoted Tuesday in City Pages saying the GOP wouldn’t be able to escape accountability for Hagedorn’s comments by trying to turn the focus on Franken.

Also Tuesday, Palke said state party chair Keith Downey has not contacted GOP Supreme Court candidate Michelle MacDonald to encourage her to repudiate the party’s endorsement. MacDonald released a letter Monday evening saying that Downey had given her a deadline of noon Saturday to give up the endorsement but that she did not intend to do so.

Politics.mn has reported that an attorney working with a member of the GOP state executive committee has contacted MacDonald repeatedly to get her to renounce her endorsement and end her campaign.

MacDonald is scheduled for trial next month on charges of drunken driving and resisting arrest, and she was evicted from the GOP booth at the State Fair last week.

Downey released a letter to delegates after the State Fair incident criticizing MacDonald and saying that although she was the party’s endorsed candidate, “there is no explicit commitment of specific resources.”

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